Interior motives: stay competitive by incorporating smart design and the new "casual elegance".

Trendiness isn't the first or second thing that comes to mind in the club industry. But living beyond the reach of the pervasive winds sweeping across the industry -- the shift from overtly formal to casually elegant club environments, and making the most of existing space to satisfy the wants and needs of increasingly diverse memberships -- can cost clubs their bedrock constituency.

Much like dedicated golfers traversing the links round after round, honing their game, and sharpening their advantage, club owners and managers have their own competitive edges to refine. Assessing usage patterns clubwide, seeking creative solutions from architects, designers, furnishing and flooring manufacturers to make the most of extant space, maximize flexibility, and give their clubs the most sought-after distinction of all: an upscale, yet relaxed atmosphere -- clubs with all the amenities and recreational options of home, and then some.

Converting an old horse barn into a tennis, swim, and exercise center for a PGA Tour country-club development might beg the casual-elegance trend one silk purse and sow's ear too many. Except that Ferry, Hayes & Allen Designers, Inc. in Atlanta designed the Tournament Player's Club at Sugarloaf in Duluth, GA, capitalizing on the barn's Dutch Colonial architecture, and incorporating some of the building's original implements in the new interior. For a second Tournament Player's Club, Deere Run in Moline, IL, FHA's design team conferred instant-classic status to the architecture of the new clubhouse and its interior with the strong, uncluttered lines of American Arts and Crafts style design.

Both projects reflect the importance of demographics as clubs forge their way into the new millennium. As recently as 10 years ago, designers and architects were asked, "How many formal dining rooms can we have?" said Ferry, Hayes & Allen President Walter Allen, ASID. "Now the question is `How many casual-dining areas can we have?'"

Moreover, many clubs are casting aside restrictions that once governed their dining rooms. "Every time we're asked to design casual dining, it's at the level of a Grille Room where men, women and children can have lunch or dinner together," said Nick Walker, IIDA, of Nicholas Walker & Associates in Los Angeles. The payoff for clubs who incorporate casual elegance, increase family-friendliness and expand sports and fitness amenities: members who spend more hours, and more dollars, per week at the club.

As prevalent in numbers as baby-boomers are -- both in and outside their clubs -- they aren't the only ones pressing for less formality. One illustration: This year, at an elite enclave in the North Carolina mountains, the impetus for casual attire 24/7 came from the club's most senior members -- those age 75 and up -- the very set who for decades adhered to stricter dress codes without rancor. "They've grown comfortable in the casual setting," Allen said. "Formal dining is basically gone, even at A-list clubs."

Today, the greatest distinction clubs can make in the minds and usage habits of their members involves atmosphere, said Steve Young of Palette -- A Design Co. Since 1993, his Jacksonville, FL, firm has worked exclusively in the club market. "Competition among clubs is tremendous," Young said, noting that in the Jacksonville area alone, 15 private clubs vie with first-class restaurants, hotels, resorts and spas.

Family appeal is being addressed to attract younger members, who want to bring their families to dinner, and partake of fitness options that include indoor and outdoor play areas as well as childcare facilities. "Interiors that reflect high-end residential decor make a club more attractive, especially to younger members and their families," Young said. "If you're comfortable, you stay. The longer you stay, the more opportunities to spend money," Young said. Fitness centers, workout rooms, spa services and more casual-dining options increasingly fill the "something-for-everyone" bill, where golf is only one amenity, added Palette interior designer, Pam Birdwell.

The good news for club owners and managers is that while aesthetics dictate much of a club's personality, changing habits from strictly formal to casually elegant is easily accomplished by choosing materials that express a more relaxed personality. One instance: Painted surfaces and lighter-toned woods like antique pine soften a room's mood as much as dark paneling and traditional wallcovering add formality to a space, Young explained.

For Palette's recent renovation of Jacksonville Golf & Country Club, Birdwell gave the Grille Room a more casual sports' theme, with multiple TVs, one big-screen TV for Sunday-football gatherings, and tables and chairs that move easily for greater flexibility. But the adaptive-use coup d'etat: gaining much-needed space for the ballroom by reducing the size of the club's locker rooms. "By expanding the ballroom's capacity from 120 - 140 to 220 people, the club immediately multiplied bookings for wedding receptions," Young said. Using the extra space to generate revenue paid an extra design dividend: savings that went into upgraded finishes elsewhere, like Corian[TM] countertops.

"In general, all segments of the hospitality market (hotels, resorts and clubs) want a more residential, less hard-edged feel," McGuire Furniture's Don Miller said. As vice president for contract sales, Miller daily analyzes market trends for the influential San Francisco-based manufacturer of classically designed contemporary furnishings. "Today's consumer is going for a more simple life, which is a lot less formal, more relaxed and less tied to a period look," he said. The value of buying McGuire for their clubs isn't lost on club members who often have McGuire furnishings in their own homes and frequent luxury-level hotels and resorts furnished from McGuire's lines, Miller noted.

Long-favored by top-notch clubs, hotels and resorts, McGuire designs in natural materials like rattan, cane wicker, bamboo, and oriental hardwoods to convey an indigenous quality that provides designers with materials to complement nature, rather than compete against it. Craftsmanship counts, too: The Phoenician Resort in Scottsdale, AZ, recently reordered 2,500 McGuire chairs, nearly 15 years after their initial order went into service, Miller said.

Here again, the influence of sophisticated, well-traveled club members pays a call on club decor, Walter Allen observed, as small, smart boutique hotels like those designed by Ian Schrager (i.e., The Mondrian in Los Angeles; The Morgan, Paramount, Hudson and Royalton in New York) feature classic contemporary furnishings, which in turn, impact the style preferences of many club members. "As baby-boomers get older, their classic styles aren't their parents' classics from the 1950s and '60s, but sleek, `of-the-moment' decor that is designed with integrity." Choosing pieces from designers such as Barbara Barry for Baker Furniture, or Ralph Lauren's `American antiques' gives clubs a look that is transitional and mixes well with other furnishings.

Though many old-line clubs remain steadfast to traditional, formal decor and layout, a growing number know they must adapt to attract new members, keep existing members happy and to adhere to federally mandated accessibility requirements. "Change is the constant," said Design Director Ed Parrotte of Noller Design Group in Miami. "The challenge for clubs who have to meet more needs is to do so in space that initially may have been poorly designed," he observed. Increasing the flexibility of a given space or reallocating space to new uses are two strategies Parrotte and company President Jack Noller employ.

"Clients need versatile furnishings to match rooms to function needs," he noted. "They're also looking for flow, a continuation of color throughout the club." Incorporating new lighter-weight stackable chairs and tables with elements like acoustical ceilings, room dividers, movable doors and padded walls maximizes flexibility with minimal labor, Parrotte said.

RELATED ARTICLE: Change is afoot.

Without so much as a click, click, click, the metallic skittle of hard-spike golf shoes largely has been replaced with the almost-imperceptible footfalls of golfers in soft-spike shoes. In the case of clubhouse and pro-shop floor coverings, the element spurring mile-upon-mile of residentially inspired club decor has come not from architects or designers, but golf-shoe manufacturers. If you're wise to the damaging effects of metal spikes on closed-loop carpets, or savvy to commercial floor coverings' slip-resistance requirements, you doubtless know that more fashionable floors are just a ceramic tile or slate slab away.

The advent of soft-spike shoes has multiplied club floor covering options beyond traditional choices like cut-pile carpeting, which best withstood old-style metal spikes and met friction-coefficiency requirements, said designer Pam Birdwell of Palette -- A Design Co., in Jacksonville, FL. Ceramic tile, slate, hardwoods and other natural materials that dominate high-end residential decor must meet a commercial-minimum standard for slip-resistance, wet or dry, Most solid-surfaces like ceramic tile, however, either can be left unpolished, in matte-finish, or receive an abrasive coating to increase slip-resistance, she said.

Two eco-friendly standouts in the stood-upon arena: Collins & Aikman's Powerbond RS[R] and ER3[R] carpet with 100-percent recycled backing, part of C&A's Infinity Initiative to reduce landfill waste; and To Market's alternative flooring, made exclusively of recycled car and truck tires.

For many vendors and designers, environmentally responsible products are equally as important as aesthetics in selecting materials to convey a club's relaxed atmosphere, according to Flori Hendron of To Market. The company's 100-percent recycled rubber flooring is virtually indestructible, Hendron notes, and its three product lines (Unicork, Atmosphere, and Envinyl) offer the club market remarkably high performance and aesthetics and divert from landfills 7.8 tires for every 100-square feet of flooring. With vast color and customizing options, superior sound absorption, and slip-resistance that, wet or dry, meets or exceeds friction-coefficiency requirements -- how much better does eco-responsibility get?

Significant advances in post-product reclamation have gained fame and favor for floor covering manufacturers like Collins & Aikman. "Green" carpeting (available in myriad other hues, too), was the choice for Baltimore's Camden Yard baseball stadium. The park's club-level facilities and sky boxes are carpeted in a combination of modular Powerbond ER3[R] tiles and 6-foot rolled carpet. Since launching its "Infinity Initiative," the first fully operational closed-loop carpet recycling and reclamation program, the company has diverted from landfills more than 24 million pounds of post-consumer carpet and manufacturing waste, noted C&A's Earl Whittaker.

In addition, changing interior-space functions can recast a club's inherent feel, Palette's Pam Birdwell observed. "In some instances, a designated space like the men's or ladies card room goes away as such, and becomes a general-use lounge," she said. "The `card room' might actually move into the men's locker room.

Conversely, as part of Nicholas Walker & Associate's renovations to The Club at Morningside in Palm Desert, CA, redesigning the main dining room actually created a new ladies card room, abracadabra-like. To accommodate special holiday buffets and large wedding receptions, Walker's plan co-opted an old storage closet at one end of the club's main dining room to gain new square footage. Installing a movable sound wall delineated a separate space for a semi-permanent, handicap-accessible card room. The real flexibility gains came by using the same wall-covering, carpeting, and table and chair styles in both rooms, Walker noted. "Normally we'd change chair styles and fabrics, but this way, when the room is opened up, the buffet can run across one end of the dining room, and the card-room furnishings match the dining room."

For casual elegance and mobility, Shelby Williams' lounge and dining chairs, dining and occasional tables were selected by Atlanta-based Image Design for clients like Desert Highlands Country Club in Scottsdale, AZ, and Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Hills, MI. Ferry, Hayes & Allen also utilized Shelby Williams' at Deere Run, the Tournament Player's Club in Moline, IL.

At Brown Jordan, long-noted for clean lines and contemporary-styled outdoor and indoor furnishings, classic designs take on a whole new look with breakthrough upholstery fabrics, said contract-sales manager Kent Hormuth. Also new: tenting highlights, powder-coat base finishes that have the look of hand-applied finishes.

To achieve the new club look: More American antiques, fewer high-styled European pieces. More old pine, less mahogany. Thanks to soft-spike golf shoes, more ceramic tile, slate, granite and hardwood; fewer miles of deep-pile, wall-to-wall carpeting. More paint, less wallpaper and wainscoting. And most requested: More casual dining, with more innovative, healthy menus.

Whether transforming existing space, or planning new construction, the basics for creating a casual, yet elegant atmosphere boil down to these:

* Overall, furnishings should reflect more light and airiness. Kent Hormuth of Brown Jordan recommends clubs avoid overly large or heavy pieces.

* Function is the Number-One consideration, McGuire Furniture's Don Miller noted. "A piece has to perform in the area it's selected for: comfort in a lounge setting, and proper scale in dining areas." A very close second to functionality is design. McGuire's price/value equation flows from performance and superior styling, as the company's per year/per chair costs are very inexpensive. "We have clubs who come back 20 years later requesting refinishing," he said.

* More old pine, less mahogany. Fewer period pieces like Queen Anne or Chippendale, more contemporary classics.

* Choose palettes to reflect the club's natural surroundings. California designer Carol Versluys used rusty reds, sienna, sage green and gold at CordeValle Country Club to complement the "Valley of the Sun."

* Alternative materials can offer designs as great as their natural counterparts. Permacane by Yerzabel's laminated rattan-pole construction furniture is an "environmentally green" alternative to wood- and metal-based outdoor and casual furniture.

* Update traditional awning-stripe or floral-patterned pool or terrace furniture with new acrylic fabrics like printed jacquards and chenille from Lloyd/Flanders' furniture. Their solution-dyed acrylics are the most colorfast, said Lou Rossenbrock, and clean up with a diluted bleach and water solution.

* Soft-spike golf shoes throw open flooring options across the clubhouse. Ceramic, slate, granite, marble and hardwoods must meet slip-resistance standards. Select tones in natural palettes, suggested Innovative Marble & Tile's Sheldon Weiss. Gray and white are popular complements to contemporary architecture and design.

* Without metal spikes, carpeting isn't confined to traditional cut-pile. Consider Durkan Carpet's country-club collection of custom area rugs, new broadlooms woven to resemble area rugs. Incorporating club crests or logos, or choosing custom outfill borders with woven grounds deliver high-end residential styling and give clubs distinction, noted Debra Adams of Classic Weavers/Options Carpet.